Does anyone know of a responsible Yorkie breede

[TheCommander]

I'm looking for the dog that will probably be with me for the next 20 years so I'm keen to find a responsible breeder who takes the time to check n hereditary conditions before breeding their dogs.

KLC registered essential (allergy reasons behind it, I would happily pick up any dog from the RSPCA if I wasn't allergic to dog dandruff).

I don't want a tiny yorkie or a show quality one, just a healthy dog to keep us company. Does anyone knows of a breeder who may have the one? (happy to travel within 60 miles of Leeds)

[SmartAlecMetalGit]

Get in touch with the breed club, they should be able to point you towards some reputable breeders. There is a regional breed club for the area as well (Northern Counties Yorkshire Terrier Club), their website is rather out of date but there are some contact details on their KC page.

There's also a list of assured breeders here on the KC site but bear in mind some very good breeders choose not to be part of the scheme because, whilst it's good in theory, it's not as good as it should be.

Definitely don't discount show breeders. Most show bred puppies and up as "just" family pets and the vast majority of dogs that are shown are first and foremost very much loved family pets. Admittedly I've dabbled a bit in showing but my pedigree dogs were always bought primarily as pets and they're lovely dogs from a fabulous breeder who is now a close friend.

Shows are actually a great place to go to meet breeders and breed enthusiasts. It's a shame you didn't post a couple of weeks ago, you've just missed out on Leeds championship show. The next major one in the are is Darlington (confusingly it's actually held at Ripon racecourse) which is on the 18th, 19th and 20th of September. Yorkies will be there on the Sunday. At the start of October there's also Driffield (which is held at Wetherby racecourse, just to confuse things further) with yorkies being shown on Sunday the 4th.

[TheCommander]

Thank you, that's great advice. I will definitively try to get to at least one of the shows.

I have had Yorkies for almost 20 years, I'm familiar with the breed, and unfortunately, with the hereditary conditions, so I would like to try to avoid them as much as possible. I visited several breeders before deciding on a puppy when I got my previous dogs, so we managed to get two friendly outgoing souls both times, that were a delight to train, but we didn't manage to avert patella and trachea problems (probably because I didn't pay attention to that).

Ideally, I would like to find an "older" puppy (or someone happy to keep it with the dam until they are at least 4m old), but I don't know if that is too much to ask.